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A summery skirt

This little flounced skirt was made with a TNT skirt pattern I developed last summer. (Inspired by Ungaro) I didn’t know I was frankenpatterning a TNT skirt when I made the Ungaro knock-off, but this is one that I could easily make over and over again.

This time, I made it in a bit of stashed cotton broadcloth, black with a silver pattern that looks a bit like a night sky. I bought it when the galaxy prints were dominating the runway. It’s evocative of those galaxy prints without being too specific — and I think that vagueness means it won’t become dated as quickly. Prints do become dated fast.

Here’s a crop of the print, tiny silver pinpoints on a black background. It almost looks mottled.

In any case, I whipped this one out pretty quickly as part of the June stash challenge. I sewed 30 yards for that challenge and have loads of new things to show you, which I had planned to do long before now. Things have been more than a little hectic here the past few weeks as we’ve had everything from problems at work to a gas leak in the house. So I’m just now looking around and saying, “Where was I?” I can’t believe it’s been a month since my last post! Gosh, I’ve probably already worn this skirt four times since I finished sewing it.

This time, I didn’t underline the fabric. It’s a light broadcloth, but I wanted to keep it light. In the other two versions I made of this pattern, I underlined both and was very happy with the results. The Ungaro knock-off was underlined with a batiste which provided just enough body to let the quilting cotton hang smoothly and have a bit of movement. The other version is a mid-calf skirt with no flounce, and I underlined that one with some white shirting. I wanted that skirt to have a stiffer hand, and the shirting gave me just the bell shape I wanted.

If you look in the photo of this black and silver version, you can see that it hangs in loose, soft waves. If I had underlined it, those waves would not be as fluid. For this particular fabric, which has a bit of edge from the silver and black color scheme, I thought a little softness would be the right choice for balance. I didn’t want this to look stiff or hard.

So this one is a win. Honestly, most of the garments I made for the June challenge were wins, and it was a lot of fun to dedicate a month to volume sewing. I can’t even believe how much I finished in just a month — but we can always do more than we think we can, if we just focus on the task, right?